IR Insider is a production of NYU's International Relations Society. Our goal is to explain and discuss issues in IR in an engaging and thought-provoking fashion. We are written by students, for students, about issues students care about.

ABBA Announces New Music

Fans of ABBA music group saw on Friday, April 27 via Instagram that the group will be releasing new music for the first time in 35 years. ABBA posted a statement on their account that they will be returning to the recording studio and releasing two new songs and it was confirmed by their manager, Gorel Hanser, in a press release.

Photo: dosmagazine.com

The Swedish pop quartet of Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad reached the peak of their fame in the 1970s and 80s, and Andersson and Ulvaeus produced the musical Mamma Mia! in 1999, written around ABBA’s top hits. Their music has had a long streak of popularity, famous before the musical and movie and also remaining famous afterwards in pop.

In the early 1980s, the band split up. Andersson says there were many factors in their breakup, including both the couples getting divorced (Agnetha Fältskog from Björn Ulvaeus and Anni-Frid Lyngstad from Benny Andersson) and differing work careers.

Since then, Andersson spent time writing the musicals Chess and Mamma Mia, and he’s now working on the sequel Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, which is set to come out as a movie in July. Fältskog and Lyngstad each had solo music careers after ABBA’s split. Ulvaeus worked with Andersson in their stage producing, and then had a bit of an activist career campaigning to make Sweden a cash-free society. He also collaborated with DJ Avicii in the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest.

Photo: comingsoon.net

This studio reunion is the first time they have gotten back together to record, and it comes as they are also planning a holographic virtual tour for 2019. Simon Fuller, creator of American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance is heading the project. All four original members of the group will appear as avatars, or “Abbatars,” of their younger selves from the 70s and 80s, as Ulvaeus said, “We thought we looked good that year.”

To make the holograms, the members were photographed from all angles and had their heads measured. The digital copies will look like real humans and will lip-sync the songs on tour, making it seem like a live experience. One of their two new songs, “I Still Have Faith In You,” will be performed on TV in December for a special broadcast.